


Pinter Pause

by en passant (corinthian)



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-16
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-02-25 13:45:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 20,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2623952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corinthian/pseuds/en%20passant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Navigating loss, faith, new relationships and old friendships.</p><p>Duo is a young college professor trying to move on in his life and Trowa is doing sort of the opposite.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was hot. The chapel had poor ventilation, or some fool had turned on the heat, it was only early September and not a single person had come to the service in a coat. It was supposed to be an informal deal — flowers, old pictures, laughter, small miniature sandwiches with ham and cheese because the adopted kids all remembered eating ham and cheese after school.

Someone had gotten it wrong, they must have. Duo Maxwell tried to figure out which fuck-up and fucked it up even more. He let his casual glare drift from extended family member to extended family member. Most of them were distant aunts or uncles, some of them must be cousins. There were some caretakers, people who had watched over Solo as he died, who had provided the small white sheet of paper with innocent looking typeface a Do Not Resuscitate order form.

That was only the first thing they had gotten wrong. Duo had been a middle child — or the equivalent of one anyway. Solo Maxwell hadn’t been older than twenty, but he had been rich, well liked, some kind of local hero and apparently that meant the government didn’t ask questions when he wanted to adopt kids. Knowing what he did now, Duo figured Solo must have paid someone off or the judge must have been drunk as hell, because there was no way that Solo should have been able to adopt the five of them.

Them. The five of them. He never thought about it like _us_. Never thought about them as brothers and sisters. The oldest was Ginger, a scrawny blonde woman who had brought Solo’s landscape photography and framed them. She stood off to the left, she hadn’t sat down the entire service. Her lips were set in a hard line. She didn’t trust anyone. She hadn’t even trusted Solo, she had fought him her entire life. The youngest was Madder. A precocious redhead who wore his hair in short bobs that Duo had seen more than one actress sport on the red carpet. Madder was crying, he’d sat himself in the front row of chairs and as soon as the service started he just cried and cried and cried.

There was Riley and Layla who were, agewise, on either side of Duo but could have been twins. Riley sat in the back, shoulders rigid and he chewed on his lower lip. Layla sat up next to Madder, offered him tissues and wore a forced smile. It hadn’t been any of them. Ginger had only come to pay her respects, she had been combative with Solo but she respected him like one would a sergeant. Madder loved Solo more than he loved anything else, but he was also too much of wreck — always — to have ever disobeyed Solo’s funeral wishes. Riley and Layla operated in tandem and while both were strong-willed enough to fuck shit up they also lived in their own world. Growing up they had devised their own language and spent most of their time talking to each other.

That left the adults. Duo kept the twist of bitterness off of his face — barely. The adults. People who had been Solo’s relatives but hadn’t come when Solo had gotten sick. They hadn’t offered money, support, supplies. They hadn’t been there when Duo and the others had carried crates of Pediasure into the small home they used to share because Solo couldn’t eat solid food anymore. They hadn’t been there when Solo had promised to keep fighting and told them to all go back to their lives, to send him pictures of their accomplishments, to never forget what he taught them.

But someone had produced a DNR form, someone had changed the funeral to be at a chapel. Someone had invited a pastor — a portly man that played on the electronic organ and who’s hands trembled when he read from the Bible. Someone had gone against all of Solo’s wishes to die at home, fighting and reading news about his kids’ accomplishments.

The pastor had moved on to give his speech about Solo. Like every priest, pastor, religious fanatic or shit eating college kid who slept with a Bible under their pillow, he started like a used car salesman. Duo could agree with the first bit of the speech — family had been important to Solo. It wasn’t the family that you were born with — insert sneer at the useless adults in the room — but the family you made and Solo had made a wonderful family.

And then it went south from there. The pastor went on to talk about how they — the five of them! — weren’t the only family that Solo had made. No, Solo had also made in-roads with God and now lived in the house of Our Father The Holy Spirit Who Loves Us All Equally and how Solo would be waiting there in the kingdom of heaven for all of his family when they died.

All Duo heard was “if you kill yourself, you can join Solo in Heaven, also convert to my faith.” It wasn’t entirely fair of him. And Duo was far from atheist. He just didn’t spend time at chapels, at churches, or with people who seemed to think faith was a commodity to sell to people who were starved for something to believe in.

One of the aunts — Penelope or Crystal or something — nodded along fervently with the pastor. Duo narrowed his eyes and kept her in mind for the reception. Maybe it had been her.

The service ended with another Bereavement Special: Get Your Faith Here, Just $9.99, Half Off Today Only And Every Sunday For An Hour By The Way God Is Great prayer. Some of the adults cleared out immediately, being old and apparently too impatient with little things like death ripping Duo’s entire world into tiny pieces to stay for the reception. Ginger stopped by each of them, hugged them fiercely, pressed a card with her number into their hands and left as well.

Riley and Layla manned the food station, hands joined under the table, and then they dragged Madder to stand with them. Duo sought out the aunt and cornered her by the organ.

“So. Nice service.” He said. He didn’t bother to hide his sneer of disgust.

“Wasn’t it? I’m sure Solo would have approved.” She said dreamily, satisfied and her fingers clutched her purse in a death grip. “I’m glad that he signed over power of attorney and all his other affairs to us. It was just so sad that he was intent on suffering when he could have so much more.” Her smile widened but she also looked genuinely sympathetic. He hated people like her. She did think she had done Solo a service, had encouraged him to sign his last wishes away. She would always think she was right.

Duo didn’t scream, he didn’t pick up the nearby organ bench and try to beat her with it. He didn’t do any of the things she deserved. Instead he embraced the cold hard part of him that was between fury and devastation and gave her a brittle smile.

“He would have hated it. He would have fucking hated it. He hated this kind of shit the most. He wanted us to knock back a few shots and share baby pictures — like Ginger’s stupid tractors or Riley’s diploma or something. You made this about what you wanted, you fucked up. You took everything away from him at the end of his life and I — we’ll — never forgive you for that.” His voice didn’t shake, he didn’t look away from her. He heard himself speaking in an echo, a hollow emptiness directed his voice and dragged it down through his ears and let it settle in his belly. “I hope you’re happy.”

The last of it was said as a small deadly whisper. Her smile only paled a degree, but clearly his lack of outburst gave her courage.

“Duo, honey, you’re so young and I know that Solo was your second family. There are things you don’t understand — “

Something popped. If his earlier voice had been an echo, then his whole body felt like a blood blister. Things, his own words, her words, Madder’s tears, the pictures of Solo lined up behind the casket, boiled up under his skin and filled him until he felt swollen. She seemed to dance in and out of his vision, black spots and jagged white lines ripped through his world.

Later, he would have to be told that he spat on her first and then hit her. She had maced him, kicked him, and they brawled. Riley and Layla had pulled them apart and Madder then accidentally dropped the organ bench on her. She was their Aunt Cecilia. She told them out of the goodness of her heart and her _understanding_ of the depth of their pain she wouldn’t press charges.

Duo didn’t remember a single shred of that. He just remembered thinking: I fucked up, Solo, I failed you, come home.


	2. Chapter 2

The small cafe had been there for years. It predated the college itself and when the college had wanted to buy the small brick building the locals had caused such an uproar that it was now declared a historical building. At one point and time it had been the office in a shoe making factory, but during a tornado the entire factory had been leveled except, strangely, the office. The cafe carried this legacy in its name, always including a footwear reference of some kind. Over the years the cafe had been called Bootlegged, Sole Cup, If The Shoe Fits, Sandals Over Sacred Grounds and more recently Sole2Seoul, a Korean-American fusion cafe that boasted wicked espresso drinks and specialty sandwiches like the Bulgogi Hoagie.

Duo Maxwell, new professor at Venton College, spent a good five minutes scanning the menu as he stood in line. The department secretary had suggested it and then added with a far too obvious wink that a young man like himself might be able to strike up some _fruitful_ conversation there. He had been informed that college students weren’t allowed to work at Sole2Seoul, so there wouldn’t be any cross-contamination.

At twenty-eight Duo was kind of hoping he was beyond ‘hook up with the barista for a quickie during breaks between classes’. And he’d only dated a barista once. 

“How can I help you, sir?” The barista here, too, was far too young. She had a sweet oval face and just the right amount of sanguine customer service to her voice.

“A large? Americano with caramel syrup and a — “ Duo squinted at the menu, “Super Scallion Seafood Pancake?”

“Got it, go ahead and wait down at the end for your food and drink. Have a great day.” The barista’s — or was she just a cashier? — blinding polished smile sent him off down the counter towards the pick-up window after he paid.

Along the way was a curious series of photographs. While he knew that Venton College and the immediate surrounding neighborhoods were seen as alternative — that’s why he had wanted to come _here_ , after all, he hadn’t really expected the cafe to have a series of pornographic photographs on the wall.

Technically they were _just_ this side of pornographic. All done by the same photographer and very nude model, all black and white. The first was called ‘Zero: Icarus’ and the model’s face was hidden by a rough dark shadow. Their body was bent back in a severe arch, ribs creating ridges in the skin and the model’s hips were hidden by more shadows. The photograph gave off the feeling that the model was falling backwards, feet lifted in the air — left foot had curled toes, the right was twisted to the side, as if the model had slipped off of a platform. Their hands were splayed out, fingers twisted and giving the illusion somehow of broken wings.

The next was more revealing. The model, again with face hidden, was bent back across a rock. The view was down the model’s chest, but between where there could be breasts, showing off the sand beneath their feet, their scarred knees and just the barest hint of a hipbone before the perspective cut off. Duo couldn’t decide if he could see the curve of a cock or not, the lightning was as obscuring as it was intriguing. It was titled ‘The Sand And The Rock.’

The third was the first one where Duo could see that the model was a young man. Entitled ‘Death Sighs’, the model’s mouth is curved into a small almost shy grin while the rest of his body is aggressively angled, dramatically tilted, stance rigid and militaristic. There must have been some filter adjustments as well because the pale scars seemed to jump off of his skin.

“Sir — sir is this your order?” He had to tear his eyes away from the photographs, only just catching the name plaque, to retrieve his food. “Those _are_ for sale, if you’re interested.” The man behind the counter with Duo’s drink and seafood pancakes offered.

Duo was interested. Until he found out each photo was $200.

He endeavored, instead, to look at the other two pictures at Sole2Seoul after he was finished eating and then research the photographer C.W. and model 3. Unfortunately halfway through his meal he got a call from the department head offering him another two classes to teach that semester and if he couldn’t just come by the office to pick up the books and by the way did he know orientation was that evening and it would be _so nice_ for Duo to go so the students could see him.

He ate quickly, then, and rushed to the office to cram in two more syllabi and orientation plans before the evening hit. 

Orientation was a joke. Duo regretted rushing to make the overly pretentious speeches and hundreds of students who wanted to be anywhere but there, sitting in uncomfortable plastic chairs and listening to how if they didn’t know exactly what they were doing for the next four years they were all so very very fucked. He did get to meet another professor in his department, a woman named Sally Po who taught American Lit but her real passion was how medical themes in texts changed over time. She had a soft smile and a good sense of humor but also seemed too overtly passionate about agreeing with the president’s don’t be a fuck up speech for Duo’s comfort.

After the speeches there was a mingle and students could meet the faculty and new teachers. Duo fielded basic questions — he was the new playwriting teacher and he had just picked up two sections of Comp 101 — but after hearing a gaggle of students loudly and publicly debate how hot to rate him on Rate My Professor he decided to peace out.

Dating students — and, fucking students — was a big no-no. Part of it was definitely the whole _job integrity_ thing, but part of it was because no matter what students were children. Even when he had been only a few years older than students and acting as a TA they had just _seemed_ young. He hated feeling old.

It was going to be a long year.


	3. Chapter 3

Sole2Seoul quickly became his preferred spot to read over papers and do initial marking. The apartment he was renting wasn’t _bad_ but it was far enough away from campus that Duo preferred to only go there when he was completely done — and that meant on Mondays not until 11:30 at night. He had, for some incredibly stupid reason, agreed to teach an 8:00-11:00 once-a-week Comp 101 section. He must have been insane or having a severe impairment of judgment especially since his playwriting classes met at 9:00 and 10:00 and his other section of Comp 101 met at 2:00. So he was on campus from 8:00am to 11:00pm on Mondays. Next year he wasn’t going to be so fucking stupid.

The first week of class had passed relatively uneventfully, but on Thursday afternoon between his morning and afternoon classes Duo had enough papers to look over that he was sorely regretting giving them an in-class essay on the first day. It was his habit, though, to spend the first part of the class going over the syllabus and expectations and the second letting them freewrite an essay. It gave him not only a look into their writing skills but also their personality.

Two dirty chais later and he had mostly finished going through the first section of Comp 101’s essays. They were pretty typical, a good third of the class had written about why college athletes should get paid for their sports in more than scholarships but a third of his class were also college athletes. They were mostly standard college students, mostly freshman and mostly this was their first college class. Cute, but hopefully an easy section.

His evening section, though. . . they were as non-standard as they came. Venton only ran a few classes at night, but it was enough that a working student could graduate on time if they enjoyed taking monster three hour marathon classes in the evenings. The majority of his evening section were older, most came dressed in their work clothes and they were less rowdy, less wide eyed and probably more interesting. He had at least one middle-aged man in his class, probably forties, and it _looked_ like only a few freshman. There were some upperclassman, who he knew from the class roster, were on their third and final strike to pass Comp 101 or they wouldn’t be able to graduate. The rest were a mixed bag between the ages of 18 to 26. He hoped there would be fewer essays on athletic compensation, he could only stand to read the same topic so many times.

Duo set the papers in a neat stack and pulled out his grade sheet before he got up to get another drink. Perhaps he drank too much caffeine but after college, after grad school and after assistantships and a whirlwind of adjunct teaching, he was probably at least 50% caffeine at any given time. He ordered a latte this time and as he headed down to pick up the drink noticed that the photos from the wall were gone — in their place were gorgeous landscapes of canyons and frozen fields, also by C.W. but there were no people in them.

“Say, those photos? Someone bought them? _All_ of them?” It was a bit baffling to think someone would drop a thousand dollars on photographs so easily. The girl steaming the milk looked up, her brow went down as she thought about it and then she smiled.

“Yeah. They never last long, actually. The photographer must have some kind of following because his stuff gets bought in under two months, sometimes even faster. Whenever he has shoots with models they fly outta here. I think that last display was only up for a week.” 

“Wow. I mean — they were really something but. . .” How to phrase Wow That Is Fucking Expensive, Though Maybe Just Because I’m Not Rich. Duo knew some rich people, older distant semi-relatives of his, and they wouldn’t have blinked twice about dropping a thousand bucks on a photo series, but still . . .

“Mmhmm. If you want we have comment cards for the photographers and artists and you can leave him a message of your appreciation.” She slid the latte forward, along with a notebook and pen. There were colored tabs with the artist and photographer names on them.

“Just the artists and photographers? Not the models?” Duo asked and flipped to C.W.’s page. The first comment was _Your photo is tight as hellllll, man!_ It made him grin, he could even imagine any number of his students scrawling that down with a smirk.

“We used to have them for the models, but we’re so close to the campus that sometimes the comments were. . . well, inappropriate. Not that college kids are always inappropriate but there was one too many ‘got a body i’d like to something your mother would not approve of you ever saying’ comments and we got rid of them.”

Duo nodded and turned the page to find some clean space. C.W.’s page had a lot of mixed comments, some were as expected — probably photography students — and asked or praised his technique. Some were like the first, pure enjoyment and there were a few who seemed lukewarm — _I don’t think the nudity in ‘Meteor’ was really necessary_ or _Bland, but everyone seems to like your shit_. He wrote a simple, generic, thanks for sharing your work, comment and went back to the essays.

His evening class was amazing. The first was essay was from the middle-aged man — Theodore — and was about how the Borg from Star Trek and zombie apocalypse movies were similar and different. It was not a very well thought out or written essay and Theodore seemed to have several spelling issues, but it was interesting and funny. There were a few essays about politics, one about drones and then there was Ruth’s essay on why people who aren’t religious have no morals. Duo’s pen dug a hole in the paper. It would be unfair for him to mark her down just because he didn’t agree with her but his urge to just write NO across the paper in big red letters was a little too tempting. He set her essay aside, to look at later, and picked up the next one.

Written by a “T. Barton” and the subject was on decriminalization of sex work. He tried to remember who T. Barton was and came up with the tall quiet student who sat in the back. An older student, probably closer to twenty-six than eighteen, though it was always difficult to tell. Barton had worn a large peacoat, that might have been fashionable if it had not been two sizes too large for him, and tried to be extremely forgettable that night. Not too quiet, since Duo always called out his completely silent students, but not loud or opinionated. The one time Barton volunteered an answer, he had given him an almost apologetic smile and given the most basic answer in all of history — too textbook and uninvolved. The kind of standardized testing answer Duo despised.

They essay, however, was the exact opposite of Barton’s classroom behaviour. It was thorough and passionate and had just as many spelling mistakes as Theodore’s. It was better crafted and more persuasive, but the handwriting and spelling as well as punctuation were something more like what a high school freshman or even a junior high student might produce. Given the vocabulary in the paper Duo figured Barton would be a better orator than persuasive essay writer. He’d have to get him to _talk_ during class and not spin redundant bullshit.

Reluctantly Duo went back to Ruth’s essay, half-planning a classroom debate as he scribbled notes in her margins about poorly supported arguments.


	4. Chapter 4

Five weeks into the semester and Duo regretted everything. His playwriting classes were great — more than great! — but he was _good_ at that and his students _wanted_ to be there. Comp 101 was basically the necessary evil for students to graduate or get into cooler, better, writing classes. He was beginning to doubt the quality of high school education. He was also beginning to doubt his ability to keep his temper.

“I hate students.” Duo muttered and sat down on the couch in the English department lounge. Nearby Sally made a sympathetic noise and a mug of hot chocolate appeared on the table before him.

“They are all so cute at the beginning of the semester, huh.” She sat down across from him and winked. “And then once they realize you’re human they go in for the kill.”

“No one wants to be in Comp.” It was only a slight exaggeration. Duo did weekly battle with Ruth, couldn’t get half of his evening class to turn in their work and several students continued to just _not show up_ and for a weekly class that was going to cost them dearly. His other Comp section was just as bad but in different ways. He had been told twice by students that they paid for his salary so he should let them turn in their work late and every attempt for a classroom debate left them staring at him blankly as if no one had ever taught them to speak their mind. If he could combine his classes maybe they would be able to have productive dialog but instead it seemed to be an all or nothing situation and that wasn’t even touching their writing. “I’m starting to think _I_ don’t want to be in Comp.”

“Didn’t you say you loved them, just a few weeks ago?” Sally grinned and reached over to pat his knee. “You’re just hitting that part of the semester.”

“All of my most brilliant students are trying really hard to not exist too,” Duo sighed. He had a few talented freshmen, precocious kids who wrote tight well crafted essays and always turned their work in, but seemed unwilling to step outside of the box. All their essay topics were generic and safe. Then there were his Probably Brilliant But Fuck If I Know students. They either had engaging dialog and terrible essays or the reverse or they showed flashes of genius and then proceeded to do something like miss two weeks of class and not turn in an essay.

He hated it when students had potential and _something_ was messing it up. He couldn’t profess to know their situations, especially not his evening class, but it was frustrating to watch students fail or shrink away and not really take advantage of their own skills. Duo always wanted to bring the best out in his students at his last job he had a reputation among the kids as a nice hardass. 

“Why don’t you do some one-on-one meetings? Mandatory one-on-ones.” 

“I’m sure that will thrill them.” 

“Do it before a big paper,” Her brow quirked up a bit, “I’m surprised you haven’t done so already. You seem like the kind of guy who gets really invested.”

“I don’t like to pressure them.” Duo sighed. One-on-ones weren’t a bad idea but sometimes students reacted poorly to being told they had to meet with their teacher. He preferred the casual atmosphere of the classroom and leaving his office door open for students to come in if they wanted. Duo was a bit believer in student initiative, basically.

“Some of your kids are little new college babies, they could probably use the pressure.”

She was probably right. Duo was also right though, when he announced mandatory pre-paper meetings his class erupted into groans. It seemed to also motivate everyone though, when they realized they’d have to present their essay topic to him and then be trapped in his office with him for ten whole minutes.

He still had hours before his evening class, it was tempting to go home but then it would be even harder to make his 8:00. So he went to Sole2Seoul where he was more than a regular, it was practically his second office. And _someone_ was sitting at his table. It wasn’t really his table, Duo didn’t own the place, but he always sat there. His face broke into a grin, though, when he realized who it was.

“Heyyy, Quat!” Duo headed over with a bounce in his step, careful not to spill his coffee. “Fancy seeing you here, stranger.”

“Duo! The kind barista told me you often sat here.” Quatre beamed up at him and they kissed each other’s cheeks.

“They know me better than my mother does,” Duo winked and sat down. “I didn’t know you were in town! Weren’t you in London?” Quatre traveled a lot for business and he was often based in one of the North African or Middle Eastern countries. Recently he’d been in London to open another office for his gigantic company.

“Business concluded faster than anticipated, I think they were working ahead of schedule to impress me.” Quatre ducked his head. “I shouldn’t complain about the efficiency, but there wasn’t really a need to do that. . .”

“You better have praised them, who knows what they’ll do if they think they slighted you!”

“Duo! Of course I did! I wouldn’t ever _not!_ ” Quatre said in mock horror, but raised his eyes and his smile seemed less embarrassed. “Since I had the time I thought I’d come see you. I would have called ahead, but I don’t have your number and the one listed on the website goes to some cattle ranch in Idaho . . .”

“Ah, sorry, sorry, I was staying with Ginger for a bit and didn’t change the number over. . . but my phone’s off when I’m teaching anyway.” 

“So, is it everything you hoped and dreamed for?” Quatre and Duo had attended high school together and back then they had both wanted to become teachers. Quatre had his sights set on teaching junior high or elementary school but then his father had died and he inherited the business instead. Duo had dreamed of being a pilot, but his life took him elsewhere.

“A little of both, I’m glad to finally be a fulltimer though, adjuncting was the pits.”

“I remember! But you know, if you ever change your mind W.E.I. would be happy to start you at entry level.” Quatre’s eyes shone with mirth. It had been an old offer, one that Duo steadily declined over the years.

“Me, a suit? You’ve got to be kidding.” Duo snorted and then leaned forward across the table, volume dropping a bit. “How long are you in for? I teach an evening class until eleven tonight, but other days of the week my evenings are free.”

“Oh my, are you asking me out Mr. Maxwell?”

“Only if you’re picking up the tab for dinner.”

“Deal. How does Wednesday sound? I don’t leave until Friday afternoon, but there’s an art gallery I want to check out tomorrow and some conferences to call into.”

“An art gallery? Are you saying I wouldn’t be interested in such a thing?” Duo laughed. The last time he and Quatre had gone to a museum he had sped through it and four hours later Quatre emerged from a single exhibit.

“I — well, it’s a friend of a friend’s! A photographer and his partner does painting and maybe we would get one for the New York office, since the last one had that unfortunate coffee incident. . .” Quatre’s fingered drummed against the tabletop. The infamous coffee incident had ruined a thousand dollar painting of an extremely ugly horse and Duo was sure that Quatre was glad it was gone.

“If you want company I would gladly go to an art gallery with you, Quat. Then you can blame the horrific painting you get for the office foyer on me.”

“Well, if you insist.” Quatre gave in far too easily, his grin a little too wicked.

“Oh fuck me, Quat, what do you have planned?”

“You’ll find out!”


	5. Chapter 5

Duo had let Quatre pick clothes for him for the art gallery _party_ , which Quatre had definitely not said was a party until after Duo had agreed to go, on the condition that the clothes he picked would be comfortable and not a suit. Quatre, who practically slept in suits, would have found them comfortable. Duo believed that years of wearing ties had strangled Quatre into that strange idea because he only wore suits for job interviews and that was torture enough.

He had to admit Quatre had made a good choice. He looked good and was able to wear a pair of dark jeans with the jacket and button down shirt. Not too casual but not I’m Too Poor To Hang Out With Quatre Winner, and that was good enough.

“So, a friend of a friend, huh?” He asked as they approached the art gallery door. The gallery had frosted glass walls and he could see people milling about inside. 

“Yes, do you remember Dorothy Catalonia?” Quatre laughed at Duo’s dramatic shudder.

“ _Remember_ her!? I can’t forget her! She haunts my nightmares!” 

“One incident with a knife and a keg and you’re traumatized,” Quatre shook his head, though years ago, at the time, he had also been traumatized by Dorothy. “Anyway, she knows Meilin Long — the partner of the art gallery owner. They go way back and Dorothy mentioned it would be a personal favor to her if I could show my support. Meilin’s amazing on her own though, you can look her up and see some of the articles she’s written. She’s an advocate for women in tough situations.”

“And the gallery owner?” Duo could only imagine an old friend of Dorothy’s being terrifying.

“Her partner, Wufei Chang. He’s mostly a photographer and has won some awards but. . .” Quatre dropped his voice, “Before he got into the proper art venues he was a photographer for _Controlled Restraint._ ”

“He — but — Quat, you’re shitting me!” Duo had, years ago, been an avid buyer of the magazine. It was basically a porno magazine, specializing in erotic bondage and BDSM fantasies. Quatre had found his box of magazines once when sleeping over and it had been their shared and guarded secret over the years. “That man is going to be my hero.” Duo added firmly.

“See, I knew you’d want to come.” Quatre grinned and pushed the door open to the gallery.

There couldn’t be more than twenty people inside. Many clutched martini glasses or those fancy wine glasses without stems and were taking slow paths around the various paintings and photographs. The paintings were mostly abstract, modern, things that Duo wasn’t too interested in but he could tell by the way Quatre made a hurried step over to a large canvas filled with sunset colors that undoubtedly at least one painting would make it into a W.E.I. office.

The photographs were a different story all together. Half were beautiful landscapes, some of them daring and dizzying views over the edge of waterfalls or mountain sides. There was a sense of sublime fear from each of them. The other half were of people. One was a naked man and woman at the bus stop, looking as mundane as any business goer. There was another of a handcuffed man, fully clothed, with a much older woman sitting in his lap, somehow both erotic and disjointed.

And then he saw it, a series of seven photographs that matched the ones that had been for sale at Sole2Seoul. They featured the same model, though often just parts of him and mostly in the nude. The last in the set of seven showed the entire model, crouched on the ground with a bayonet in one hand and a broken rifle in the other with shell casings scattered at his feet. But what made the photograph intriguing was the model’s face, half shadowed by his hair and lips turned up in an apologetic smile.

An apologetic smile Duo had seen before. An apologetic smile Duo was going to be seeing next week at his mandatory one-on-one.

“Oh, fuck me.” He whispered and ran into someone else who was looking at the photos.

“Only if it’s installation art, for tonight.” 

Double fuck me. Duo thought as he looked up to see his student, T. Barton who’s name was Triton but please call him Trowa, blanched and stepped back hurriedly.

“Shit — Professor — I mean, not. . . shit. . . “ Trowa fumbled briefly, took a deep breath and seemed to relax. “I didn’t know you would be here, Professor Maxwell.” 

Duo looked from Trowa’s now composed face to the photograph on the wall and back. If his staring was taken poorly, Trowa didn’t show it. Duo let himself gape for another moment before answering.

“Sorry about that, I didn’t see you there.”

A muscle in Trowa’s jaw twitched and Duo could almost hear the reply: I thought you were seeing a little too much of me. Over the weeks Duo had become accustomed to Trowa’s written wit, even if he could never coax it out verbally.

“I normally don’t come to these, but Wufei is celebrating our big sale and thought it might be nice for me to show my face.” Trowa shrugged, the gesture effortlessly graceful. “I didn’t see you on the guest list so you must be someone’s plus one. . .?”

“Quatre Winner.” Duo shrugged himself. “Do you work here? Got to say, I didn’t picture the night going like this. Art gallery showings — or parties — aren’t really my thing.” Trowa raised an eyebrow at Quatre’s name, but didn’t comment on it.

“Mine either, and someone assigned a writing assignment I should be doing instead.” Trowa smiled slightly to show Duo he was in on the joke. 

“It’s only five pages.” Duo rolled his eyes. “I’m sure you can handle it. Besides, I had the option to give you more.”

“I’m sure I could handle that as well,” Trowa made an amused sound and took another step back from Duo. “Let me introduce you to Wufei, if you like the photographs he’d be glad to hear it. He always gets mixed reviews on the ones involving people.” He left Duo quickly, made his way across the room in a few long strides. Duo had underestimated Trowa’s height, during class sitting in the back Trowa hadn’t looked nearly so tall but when they stood next to each other Duo had to tilt his head up to see his face. It was also the first time he had seen Trowa in something other than an oversized coat or sweatshirt and it was only far too easy to match the body in the photos to Trowa’s beneath his clothes. He didn’t have too much more time to think before Trowa led a scowling man over.

“Wufei, this is Professor Maxwell my composition teacher. Professor, this is Wufei Chang, the mastermind behind the gallery.” Trowa’s voice was warm and sounded like he was sharing an inside joke with Duo. Wufei seemed to not appreciate that as his scowl deepened.

“Pleasure.” Wufei said and offered Duo a hand.

“Same to you, ‘Fei, I love your photography. I was considering buying the ones you had up at Sole2Seoul but someone beat me to the punch.” It was a white lie, but Wufei didn’t have to know that. Unfortunately it seemed as though Wufei had some kind of white lie detector and arched a skeptical brow.

“Were you considering buying them because you appreciated my photography or because you appreciated the model?” He practically snapped. Duo stared, just openly stared, before lifting his gaze to see how Trowa reacted to that but Trowa was nowhere to be seen. He’d fled and left Duo to deal with Wufei on his own.

“The photography, I would never lust after a student.” Duo finally replied.

“Not that you knew he was your student then.” Wufei challenged.

“I — can’t you just take a compliment, man?” Duo felt bewildered by the turn of events, not just Wufei’s open hostility but also Trowa’s appearance and then consequent disappearance. “That’s why they were for sale, right? So people who liked them could buy them and to be honest, if I want to buy porn I usually don’t drop hundreds of dollars on it.”

That was the exact wrong thing to say and Wufei sneered. “Enjoy your night, thanks for coming to support us.” He said with enough heat to melt steel.

Duo waited for Wufei to walk away before desperately seeking out Quatre. Maybe they would be able to leave soon. He found Quatre chatting away with a young woman as she gestured at the large canvas behind them. She must be Meilin.

“Duo! Duo, this is Meilin. Meilin, my old friend Duo.” 

“It’s nice to meet you, Duo, Quatre’s told me much about you.” She grinned, almost viciously, “And I saw my partner give you a hard time over there. Don’t worry about it, Wufei’s always a little aggressive during these events. He doesn’t really understand the idea of rubbing elbows with the benefactors. Not that you’re just a mere benefactor, Quatre.” Meilin winked and Quatre _blushed._ Duo grinned, then, letting some of the tension he held from meeting Trowa and Wufei melt away.

“Oh, is that what this is about, Quat? You could have just invited us both to dinner,” He sidled over to Meilin. “If you need any dirt on Quatre here, I’ll be happy to provide.”

“Duo, don’t you dare!” Quatre was aghast, but then they were all laughing. The evening was looking up for Duo.


	6. Chapter 6

There was no Quatre or Meilin to salvage Duo’s meetings week. It had started with poor omens — Duo received calls from Riley _and_ Ginger and while both calls were casual and short the last time he had received two calls in one week from his adopted family it was because Solo had been dying.

His morning class meetings went off without a hitch and he had to admit Sally had been correct. The students were easier to read one-on-one and he was able to figure out why some of them seem paralyzed and why others too flippant. He could direct them to the writing center or set up further meetings to help out some struggling students. Despite his successes that morning there was a heavy gloom wrapped around his shoulders.

At lunch Madder called. And, in typical Madder fashion, talked to Duo for two hours straight and cried at least four times. Madder had always been a difficult kid. Duo remembered when Solo brought him home, explained to them that Madder was their new sibling and to treat him like they would each other. Unfortunately for poor delicate Madder that meant rough-housing and insulting each other and dragging Madder down the block to the old creek and shoving him in the water to see if he could swim. They had, at some point, done that to each other but the four of them were hardy and Madder was not. When Duo had went away to college he dropped all contact with them, except for Solo, and after Solo’s funeral he continued to only speak to them when they called.

Solo had been his family. The others had been people he lived with and could understand and probably even trust but never people he would willingly spend time with. But he couldn’t just cut Madder off if he called. Out of all of them Madder took Solo’s death the hardest, or maybe it was just that he didn’t know how to function and grieve at the same time. Duo worked through his mourning by being productive and being successful. He wanted to have something to say to Solo’s grave, next year and the year after. He wanted to be able to boast about his accomplishments. Madder just wanted to be with Solo again and that worried Duo. So he promised to visit Madder during his break.

Solo wasn’t around anymore, so Duo would do his best for him. With that in mind the first half of his afternoon meetings were okay. It was only Ruth that caused him grief because she thought he was being unfair in his assessment of her work and insisted that he was only mad because she was religious and he had to painstakingly spell out that he was also religious but she needed to actually provide evidence when writing essays and not just make statements as if they were assertions of fact.

His last meeting of the night was Trowa. 10:50 to 11:00pm. By 10:55 Duo was ready to just leave but figured waiting five minutes wouldn’t get him home drastically faster. He wondered if the student was embarrassed by the art gallery party or if Trowa had simply decided a mandatory meeting wasn’t so mandatory after all. Two minutes to eleven and Trowa finally poked his head into Duo’s office.

“Can you sign this?” Trowa asked and offered Duo a withdrawal slip. There was no hello, nothing.

Duo took the form and scrutinized it, as if he didn’t know what it was. “Giving up on me, Barton?” He tried to keep his voice light. Trowa was doing fine in class, he would probably end the year with a B if he turned in all his work.

“Do you need me to justify my decision?” There was something in Trowa’s voice but Duo couldn’t put his finger on it. He picked up a pen and scrawled his name on the appropriate line before handing the form back.

“No, but you’re doing fine in my class. No teacher wants to lose one of their students.”

Trowa seemed to consider that. He crossed his arms and thought about it, striking a pose in the doorway of Duo’s office. Unfairly photogenic, Duo decided as he watched Trowa think.

“I’m dropping out entirely,” Trowa finally said. “It’s not your class, so don’t think you’ve driven me away. I’m hardier than that.” The small apologetic smile was on Trowa’s face.

“Anything I can do?” Duo offered. He had helped students before, given them support or resources. Once he had driven a girl for hours to an airport. “Within reason, of course.”

“We’re probably the same age,” Trowa uncrossed his arms, took a step further into Duo’s office and looked down at him. “I got tired of being a student, that’s all. Sometimes you change roles, it doesn’t mean I’m running away from anything.”

Challenge. That’s what was in Trowa’s voice. Duo leaned back in his chair. That was unexpected, but suddenly he felt like he had at the art gallery, unable to find his footing.

“I’m twenty-eight.” Duo replied instead.

“Twenty-six, I’ll be twenty-seven soon.” Trowa nodded, satisfied. “Have a good life, professor.”

Then it was eleven and Trowa left. Duo sat in his office a while longer, replayed the conversation in his mind. Now that Trowa wasn’t his student Duo could think more speculatively, more seriously about him. As a teacher, Duo tried to not pry too much about his students and tried to not assume things. It would never do to imagine a student’s life and then judge them based on it. He had known too, from experience, that no kid wanted an adult to look at them and see a kid who had Been Through Too Much Poor Thing. He had hated that, didn’t want people to look at him as someone to fix. So he never looked at his students as people with broken lives or homes but rather people who had some challenges sometimes and needed a little support.

In the weeks he had had Trowa as a student almost nothing had been given away. Most students flagged themselves easily. They shared where they grew up or worked in personal experience into essays or speeches. Usually it was something about In My Experience or My Mother/Father said this, that sort of thing. Sometimes students would, outrageously, mention things like paying for essays to be written for them. Just last year Duo had a kid who had admitted that he used to get someone to write his essays for him and also that his house has two tennis courts and an upper and lower pool.

He knew Trowa’s legal name was Triton and that Trowa felt strongly about sex workers’ rights, food politics and the television show E.R. He didn’t know anything beyond that, except for the curious “Sometimes you change roles,” line from their conversation.

And, that Trowa sometimes modeled for the occasional pornographic magazine photographer Wufei.

“Have a good life, Trowa.” Duo muttered and headed home.


	7. Chapter 7

Madder was more than a mess. Duo had expected his home to be chaotic but he had been underestimating the amount of _junk_ Madder had acquired over the years. There was everything from stupid macaroni pictures that they had all made, sitting at Solo’s kitchen table as kids, to memorabilia from the most recent Super Bowl. And then there were the cats, all twelve of them. And the cat hair. And the clothes.

Madder deserved to be on either the show _Hoarders_ or maybe Unfuck My Life.

“So, Mads, maybe we should clean up the place or something. You know, while I’m here and all.” Duo started as they worked they way down the hallway. The hallway where he couldn’t even see the carpet.

“You can’t throw anything away,” Madder said defensively, “Without it I won’t be able to remember the good times.”

The good times. The times when they had all lived with Solo. Ginger had raised her stupid goat in the backyard and Riley and Layla won the school talent show every year with their double act. Madder had cried less and been a dreamy kid who still got Solo to read him books out loud before bed. They had all been homeschooled for a few years right after they had been adopted and then would transfer into the local school system when Solo thought they were ready. 

“Sometimes you gotta let go before you can make new good times,” Duo muttered. But he understood the feeling. Madder was the baby of their little gang, their sort of family and unlike the rest he didn’t feel obligated to look out for anyone else, or to look out for Solo’s dream. Madder had been protected and now Duo was continuing that. 

He honestly didn’t know what else to do. The semester of teaching had been good for him, the flow of students and the meetings and the grading. The chaos of campus had carried him away from this.

“Do you want anything to drink? Coffee?” Madder put a kettle on the stove and pulled down two mugs. “Thanks for coming — I couldn’t get Ginger to answer my calls, you know and — well, it’s lonely here. I’m not allowed to get any more cats and — . . .”

“Hey, no problem. We’re — family, right? We gotta stick together.” Duo gave a lopsided grin. _We’re family_ felt like a brick in his mouth. It was another of his white lies. At one point and time Duo had been the most honest person he knew, but after Solo had fallen sick he couldn’t do it anymore. He couldn’t go in to see Solo and be honest about it, not when Solo was dying and only wanted to hear about Duo’s job, his future. So he’d become adept at small lies — if they were emotionally honest then that was the same as a kind of truth, wasn’t it?

It wasn’t any different than praying to God, he’d decided.

“I don’t have any cream — but sugar?”

“Just a teaspoon.”

“Okay, here.” Madder handed over the mugs of instant shit coffee. “Sorry — I — I just wanted someone around. I’m sorry that it wasn’t that I wanted you, specifically. I’m sorry this coffee is so bad.”

“Don’t worry about it. We don’t really have that kind of relationship, yeah? I mean, look at us.” Duo took a drink of the coffee and grimaced. “Let’s also to grocery shopping later. You need to pull yourself together, Mads.”

“I don’t want to.”

“What kind of bullshit answer is that?”

“I don’t want to! There’s — there’s no real point to it, is there?” Madder gripped his coffee mug tightly. “Solo — Solo was the only one who thought I could do anything and I can’t. I can’t. I can’t I — “

Duo dropped his carry bag on the ground and carefully set his coffee down.

“Shut the fuck up. Don’t — don’t assume you’re the only one who needed him. Why do you think I’m here, why do you think everyone else is working as hard as possible? Ginger called to let me know she was going to go back to school and Riley and Layla — they’re moving again. We’re all fucked up about this. Solo did a lot for us — he did a lot for me! And I’m not going to let you sit around and feel bad for yourself when he would hate that. So what if no one else believes in you? Don’t you _dare_ spit on his grave by — not even trying!” It was hard to keep his voice even. He was sure he didn’t really achieve it, but screaming at Madder wouldn’t help. Madder acted younger than any of the students Duo had ever had. He would have been someone to keep an eye on, if he was on Duo’s class register but instead he was Duo’s brother in title but never in emotion. It was difficult to try and reach back into his Teacher Mode and pull out the balance and compassion he needed for this. And, like Madder had been saying, on some level Duo didn’t want to. He agreed to an extent, what was the point? Solo had adopted them all — all unwanted troublemaking kids who had been kicked out of shitty homes — and made them into someone.

Solo had understood that they might not want to be family, and sometimes he’d gather them up and say, my gang of five and that was the best feeling in the world to hear him say that. But Duo was an adult now and as much as he wanted to be eighteen again, sixteen again, twelve again, there was no way he was going to betray Solo’s memory and give up. Even if that meant trying to drag Madder back from the brink of whatever destructive spiral he was on.

“I wanted you here because someone needed to know me,” Madder pleaded.

“Get your coat.” Duo ground out. “We’re going out. We’ll shop. I’m throwing some of your shit out. Tonight we’re going to make dinner, mac and cheese casserole like Solo made that one time. You got it? We’re going to fucking have an amazing time and you’re going to shut the fuck up about how you can’t do anything.”

Madder got his coat, wordlessly. Duo found himself running through Bible passages in his head for the first time in years. They used to bring him comfort, when he had been an orphan at the St. Bethany orphanage and before he’d had a break with the church. But Solo had been a staunch atheist and Duo had lost his faith — because what kind of God never answered a seven year old boy’s prayers? — and it was only when he felt the most alone did Duo turn to those old memories to grasp for comfort.

“Don’t look so glum, Mads. Sorry for yelling, but I’m not gonna haul your ass up this hill by myself, got it?”

“Thank you for coming, Duo.”


	8. Chapter 8

Duo was, as always, glad when the semester ended. He loved teaching and he loved all of his students in his own way but there came a time, like three days before the end of the semester, where every question is: do we have to come to class, how many assignments can I miss and still pass, can you still fail me, can we watch a movie, do we have a final, why do we have a final, but Mr. Maxwell you used to be _cool_.

And then the day before finals he got a call from Quatre — Quatre who was going to be in town again and would Duo mind picking him up and _driving him to jail_ he needed to pay bail for someone. Of course he’d said yes but it just added to the stress of the semester end and when he picked Quatre up at the airport Duo had already had three cups of coffee and was working on a fourth.

“I didn’t ask on the phone but what’s this about?” Duo asked, checked his rearview mirror to back out and winced at the thirty plays he had to leave comments on in like the next sixteen hours.

“Well, Meilin got arrested and — “

“What!?”

“It was one of those like — public indecency or disorderly conduct things and — “

“Wufei’s wife?”

“Partner. His partner. And she was arrested and so — “

“But why you?”

“ — I offered because I was going to be coming to see them and it’s not like they have, ah, the resources that I do . . .” Quatre fidgeted a little in his seat. Duo raised an eyebrow. “She shouldn’t have been arrested. It’s only because of who she is that they arrested her, she didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You don’t have to tell me she’s innocent, I believe you. I just didn’t expect this — are you a thing?” Though from meeting Wufei, Duo found it hard to believe that the man was into open relationships. On the other hand, Quatre had said _partner_.

“We’re — not really, just friends.” Quatre muttered weakly.

And he and Meilin were just friends who shared a pretty long hug after Quatre posted her bail and just friends who were going out to dinner afterwards. Duo was invited to go along as well but he waved at the box of papers he had in his backseat and excused himself.

After not much sleep, too much grading and infinitely too many points docked for formatting, Duo felt not at all ready to face the day. And certainly not ready to face another human being but someone buzzed his apartment, waited for five minutes and buzzed again. With a groan Duo let them in and took a quick moment to wash his face. All too quickly came the knock at his door.

He swung the door open, his apartment didn’t have a peephole and the likelihood of someone coming with ill intent seemed laughable. Immediately Duo somewhat regretted not checking to see who it was.

“Morning.” Said Trowa Barton, looking far too collected and in his hands was a covered wicker basket.

Duo said something incoherent and squinted. He couldn’t possibly fathom why his ex-student was standing outside his apartment at eight in the morning. Trowa patiently waited for Duo to come around to something more like ‘morning’.

“Quatre and Meilin thought you might appreciate this.” He offered the basket. “It’s a thank you for driving him yesterday.”

Duo accepted it. He pulled back the cover and was treated to the smell of freshly baked blueberry muffins. Upon closer inspection there was also a small carafe of what was most likely Quatre’s extremely expensive espresso and a jar of Nutella.

“There is a God,” Duo muttered, practically clutching the basket to his chest.

“If your god bakes muffins, sign me up.” Trowa had a small half-smile on and he tipped his head, “They’ll find you later today to pick up the basket, and Quatre said to remind you to eat while you’re working on failing the little brats. I should be glad I dropped, hm? Have a nice day.” And then he was gone.

With no time to waste wondering why Trowa Barton was playing errand boy for Quatre Winner he sat at his kitchen table and pulled out another stack of papers to grade. Duo drank the espresso straight from the carafe and dunked his muffin pieces in Nutella. He got more done than he had late last night and by the time Quatre called he was ready to _actually_ face the day.

They went out to lunch — a late lunch — Quatre, Meilin, Wufei and Duo. On some unspoken consensus they chose a casual French Bistro and despite Wufei’s intense glare at Duo it went along fairly well.

“So how’s — the art business?” Duo asked. He wasn’t exactly sure how it worked, while he had once done some freelance and contract work the art industry, especially the stuff Meilin and Wufei produced, wasn’t in his realm of experience at all.

“It’s been fine,” Wufei said shortly. Meilin laughed.

“We’ve had to use some old avenues for business, but that’s kind of how it is. Sometimes you get lucky and someone wants to buy a few expensive pieces and sometimes you don’t sell anything _forever_. Wufei holds down the fort, though.” She looped her arm through her partner’s and there was something protective and intimate about the gesture. Duo subtly looked over at Quatre only to find Quatre was smiling benignly and that told him absolutely nothing.

“And how’s the teaching business?” Wufei asked. The implication, very much so, that Wufei knew exactly how the teaching life could be but was instead choosing to turn Duo’s method of question back at him.

“The semester’s really blown by. I wish I had more upper level classes to teach, but that’s kind of the grind of the English department. No one really wants to teach Comp, but the kids are good kids and I enjoy it.” The semester had just zipped by and something had been incredibly off. It was only now that he was beginning to slow down that Duo could see that. Or maybe it had been when he had visited Madder and then planned his winter break — to be spent at Ginger’s — that he had begun to see there was something horrifically wrong in his life. “I’ve wanted to be a teacher for a long time, so it’s kind of a dream job.”

“I get that. I’ve wanted to be an artist for as long as I could remember, but it’s only recently that I’ve been able to do the art that I like.” Meilin elbowed Wufei affectionately.

“Woman, will you stop that?” Wufei muttered, but he didn’t pull back from her.

“That’s great, have you guys been together long?”

“Meilin and Wufei have worked together for several years,” Quatre cut in smoothly. “Now, should we order dessert?”

After lunch Duo went back to campus to stuff his students’ papers in their mailboxes and drop off the final grades at the office. Maybe it was the nice lunch, paid for on Quatre’s generosity, or the lack of sleep catching up with him but standing in the mostly empty hallway he almost wished the semester would continue. More accurately, he wanted to stay busy and he didn’t want to spend the holidays with the people who were legally his family.

“No helping it.” He said to no one and headed home.


	9. Chapter 9

“You don’t have to try and be Solo.” Ginger had a no-nonsese way of talking to everyone. And as soon as she picked Duo up from the airport she laid into him. “No one is expecting you to be. We all knew you were his favorite but we don’t need someone like that anymore. We would just like you to be yourself.”

“It’s good to see you too,” Duo muttered and slid into the passenger’s seat. Ginger drove a pick-up truck, one of those giant XXL Tundra sort of beasts and there was always _something_ in the back. This time it looked like chickenwire and milk crates. “Who said I’m trying to be Solo?”

“Well, you are Duo.” As if that explained everything.

And it did, in a way. Solo had let all of the kids choose their own names, but if they wanted he would offer suggestions. Duo had chosen Duo because Solo was Solo and he never regretted it.

“He would have wanted us to lead our own lives.” 

“Madder really appreciated you going to see him, but are you telling me you wouldn’t have done that if Solo wasn’t dead?” 

Duo gritted his teeth and looked out the window. Ginger lived out in the middle of literal bumfuck where she had a bunch of farm animals and too many cats and was basically a crazy cat lady except she grew most of her own food and drank goat’s milk. He didn’t really want to be visiting her, for all the reasons she had mentioned. Or rather, just the one. Solo.

“Maybe I just realized that I shouldn’t keep ignoring you guys. It’s not like we could be shitty teenage brats forever.”

“No, but we were never family. Solo looked out for us as best he could but he wasn’t a father. If anything he was an indulgent older brother. We grew up fucked up.” The chickenwire rattled as she took the corner.

“Shut up. It was fine. We all turned out fine and it was far better than where we were. What would you be without Solo?”

She didn’t answer at first. She drove in silence and he wouldn’t speak to her until she did. They had never really gotten along and Solo had never attempted to be a buffer either.

“I’d probably be dead, but that doesn’t mean we had a good life.” 

“Why are you like this? Can’t you just accept a good thing? Or is it some kind of twisted guilt, maybe you should have been a Catholic.” He sneered at her.

“Maybe it’s you who can’t. We were worried for Madder, because without Solo he didn’t have anyone, but maybe we should have been worried for you too.” She sighed. “I’m not trying to be your older sister, that’s not something I can do…”

Ginger trailed off and then she started laughing. It wasn’t a pleasant sound and it reminded Duo a lot of how it had sounded when she’d cried after Solo had held their hands for the last time. Each of them, one at a time, stepped up to his side at the hospital and he held their hands and told them it was going to be fine. _My gang of five, you’ll be going places._ Had been his last words.

“We’re basically stuck on the same thing.” She said.

“You’re a shitty Solo.” Duo said.

“You too, you too.”

She put him up in the room above the barn. It was a little cold but she had a space heater and once upon a time she used to hide up there as a much younger girl. There was a nice bed and a bathroom and it was private. And away from her like twenty cats. Duo appreciated the gesture, knowing that the smell of barn would be in her house so it didn’t really matter if he was sleeping above the horses. Also, the last time they had shared living quarters they had brawled and Duo was sure that she could take him now. Easily take him.

“You’re welcome to help me out with the chores if you want, city boy.” She smirked, handed him some extra blankets and a ham sandwich wrapped in tin foil. “If you need anything just come on by.”

“Only if you promise not to shoot me when I knock on your door late at night because your horses have escaped or gotten eaten by coyotes or something.”

“I won’t shoot you, but I make no promises that the cats won’t get you. Did you know that cats will eat human flesh?”

He did, actually. It had been in a play he’d seen. But he’d also seen plays where babies were stoned by angry mobs so.

“You should train your animals better, Ginger. See ya in the morning.”

It was too early to sleep, but once he’d climbed the ladder to the loft room he didn’t want to climb down it to wander. He hadn’t been kidding either, in a way. Ginger was out far enough that there were coyotes and probably mountain lions. He flicked on the space heater and listened to it tick to life.

It was quiet, except for the breathing of the horses. Solo’s house had never been quiet. Solo liked to play music, keep the tv on, or let the kids shriek and scream. Ginger was probably right, that Solo had been an indulgent older brother type more than a father. When Duo had first gone to school, public school, it had been a difficult transition. He didn’t sit still, he didn’t play well with others, he had a tendency to take things if he saw them and the first few years had been pretty bad.

Solo almost took him out of school, after the second year. Instead they sat down and had a talk and Solo had coached Duo through making friends and fitting in better. With a laugh, he’d said: Well, you don’t need to _fit in_ fit in, but you just have to think more about what other people think. You wouldn’t like it if someone else took your stuff. It’s not like where you were living before and it’s not like with the other kids here at home. And — importantly, you don’t have to worry, I’m always on your side.

School had been a lot easier once he remembered that no matter what he had an ally.

Duo didn’t want to think about that, but sitting up above Ginger’s barn in the empty silence of where she lived and the longing lodged in his throat. He wished he was home with Solo, but Solo was dead. The semester was over and nothing would keep him busy enough to ignore his grief. What he had been missing during the semester had just been that — Duo wanted someone on his side. He had scrutinized Meilin and Quatre and Wufei because they had each other’s backs, he could tell. 

He was far too alone and there was nothing to do but curl up on his borrowed bed and hope he fell asleep soon.


	10. Chapter 10

The rest of the trip at Ginger’s passed uneventfully. Duo was able to cobble together his confidence and in a way all the quiet did him well. They only fought once, and he had been right she could totally kick his ass. It had been a necessary explosion and when they punched and kicked and bit at each other they both knew it was because of Solo; in a way that only someone who had lost Solo could understand. There was nowhere to run to, on Ginger’s farm, so he could only sit with his feelings or help out with her chores or talk to her.

When winter break was over he was glad to go back to the city, back to his apartment near the college and glad to be away from her. But he did feel a little more settled — at least enough to make it through another semester, even if he was alone.

She hugged him, when he got out of her truck. It was a brisk no-nonsense hug and neither of them lingered in the embrace. “Next time, invite me to your place. Doesn’t have to be soon, but maybe in the next five years, yeah?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Ginger.”

They wouldn’t ever really like each other, but she was no longer the stranger he grew up with. Maybe someday he wouldn’t dread talking to her.

The city never got too cold, even in the winter. The students were returning, even if classes didn’t start for several more days, and they were all dressed in their hooded sweatshirts and some in flipflops. Duo dropped by Sole2Seoul for an early dinner and was pleased to find it mostly empty. He wasn’t in any hurry to run into his students, still on a lull from the quiet days at Ginger’s.

After he paid for his coffee he noticed two familiar faces — Wufei and Trowa. Trowa held up a large photo on the wall space that Wufei’s pictures typically occupied, carefully shifted it from side to side until Wufei told him it was perfect. Then they moved on to the next one.

“Hey,” Trowa said, but it was a stranger’s nod, as he was intent on not dropping the photograph.

“Maybe you’d like to purchase these,” Wufei said blandly to Duo, “We could even give you a discount.”

Trowa made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh and then looked up at the corner of the ceiling, quickly pretending he hadn’t found that funny at all. The photographs were of Trowa, again, and again nude. There was a sort of Alice in Wonderland feel to them, but Duo had to admit the weird innocence draped around all the props combined with Trowa’s nudity was a little odd to him.

“Not really to my taste,” Duo grinned, “Or probably in my price range, even with the discount. Your others sell? That’s good, right?”

“Wufei’s photos usually sell pretty regularly.” Trowa said, and even though he had schooled his expression there was amusement in his voice. They finished hanging the rest of the photos and Duo observed that while Wufei was a perfectionist he wasn’t cruel. Trowa seemed to be well-used to Wufei’s preferences and often made adjustments without being told. “He has a bit of a cult following that seems to be expanding.”

“It’s not a cult.” 

“A preferred and dedicated base of followers.” Trowa diplomatically corrected himself.

“Uh, you know, I’ve really got to ask — but maybe not here, since you’re using your initials and all. . .” Duo could feel the question on the tip of his tongue. He had been, in the past, a bit of a blabbermouth but growing up and also his profession meant that he needed to be far better at reining in his curiosity.

Wufei snorted. “Yes, at least half of them are because they. . . _enjoyed_ my more pornographic work.”

“If you want to know, that’s true for me too.” Trowa interjected. Duo decided it was time to add some cream to his coffee and not answer respond to that at all. Trowa and Wufei adjusted the photographs, checked to make sure they were secure and level and all three stepped back to look at them.

“You’ve got a career in home decorating, Trowa,” Duo nodded at the hanging photographs. “If you ever want to quit your day job.”

“It’s my night job — “ “That’s none of your business.” Trowa and Wufei said at the same time.

“Sometimes I used to go to a shoot after your class,” Trowa added.

Duo groaned and placed his face in his hand, careful not to spill his coffee. “Please, _please_ don’t tell me that. I’d really rather not think about you as my student and anything about your personal life. Nothing against you but you have no idea how awkward it is for a teacher. We might be close in age but I am — well, er — still _was_ your teacher, you know?”

Trowa let more of his amusement show, small smile matched with a raised eyebrow. Wufei, on the other hand, seemed silently thoughtful.

“Well, have fun this semester.” Trowa said and picked up the extra hanging clips and picture wire. 

“I may have misjudged you, somewhat.” Wufei said, directly to Duo, while holding his gaze unblinkingly, and then with a curt nod at Trowa they both left.

Duo sat at his usual table and slowly drank his coffee. He didn’t really understand either of them, he decided. Trowa was as big of a mystery as ever and Wufei blew hot and cold. _And_ he wasn’t sure if Wufei and Meilin were together or if Quatre was with Meilin or if he had entirely misread everything. He’d have to just ask Quatre directly and in private.

He was entirely glad that Trowa had not mentioned his stint in the pornography business until now. That was not something he wanted to know when he thought of the other as his student. It was still odd — because he had seen Trowa for weeks in the classroom and while that obligation was gone it wasn’t as thought Duo could turn off a switch in his head and think of him as someone else. Trowa-who-was-my-student needed to become Trowa-something-else and Duo was adamant that was not Trowa-who-was-in-porn. That would really be the opposite of helpful. Maybe Trowa-who-likes-books or Trowa-Quatre’s-friend. Something neutral that didn’t set off the alarms in his head of what he should or should not be thinking about a former student.

He needed another cup of coffee.


	11. Chapter 11

Spring semester was better for Duo. He only taught one section of Composition and had picked up Creative Writing 211. This meant he mostly had juniors and seniors in his classes and while older students did have the problem of thinking they knew how to game the system better, and he knew at the end of the semester he would have trouble with attendance, there was less of a feeling of having to coddle them.

Of course he had also agreed to be the supervisor for the two 24 hour play weekends that went on in the semester. The first was right before midterms, which was a terrible idea but he’d already committed to it. That meant from 8pm on Friday to 8pm on Saturday he was stuck at the Theater overseeing everything needed for a production crammed into 24 hours.

Whoever designed 24 hour play events was a sadist. It was fun, in a way. For the students it usually only meant a handful of hours, before they could switch off and then return later. The writing students got their go first, and those were mostly his kids. They all spent several hours drinking coffee and essentially crying about how to plan, write and edit a one act play in under six hours.

But come 8pm on Saturday when the curtain fell either Duo was so sleep deprived and exhausted that the play was amazing or it was actually amazing. One of the two. After the show and congratulating all the students and sharing shots of cold espresso and biscotti everyone started to disperse and it was close to eleven.

And Duo got a call from an unlisted number.

“Hm, who?” Duo asked blearily.

“Maxwell?” And, to his surprise, it was Wufei.

“Wufei?”

“Yes, it’s Wufei.” Wufei said and Duo could almost hear the eyeroll. “I need a favor.”

“Well, probably — but why are you calling me?”

“I’m out of town and a friend needs a prescription picked up. The CVS should still be open, if you go I’ll call ahead and pay over the phone. Then I need you to take it to 56 South A Street, Apartment 10, got it?”

“I didn’t really agree to this, isn’t this kind of late . . . can’t it just wait until tomorrow?”

“No. Also if he shuts the door in your face just knock again and he’ll open it. He’s moody.”

“He who?”

“Trowa, didn’t I already say that? Well, get going.” And then Wufei hung up. Duo stared at his phone and half wondered if he’d just made up the entire conversation. Hallucinated it. As to why his brain would make a hallucination like that he had no idea but he wasn’t very appreciative of every single meeting he had with Trowa Barton basically being the most awkward thing he could think of at any given time.

Hallucination or not the CVS was right around the corner, so he went and found that the pharmacist practically shoved the white paper bag into his hands with a frown. Duo wondered if Wufei had laid into her on the phone and he apologized without knowing what for. He hadn’t written down the address that Wufei had given him, however.

He remembered A street but not much else. So he wandered down the street until he came to what looked like an apartment complex and checked the mailbox names until he saw “T. Barton” at apartment ten. Up two flights of stairs.

“I fucking hate you, Wufei.” Duo dragged himself up the stairs and knocked on Apartment 10’s door. There was no response. So he knocked again. No response. After a while he just rapped on and off for a good ten minutes until the door was yanked open.

Trowa glared and leaned heavily on the doorframe. He looked very different from Trowa-who-brings-muffins and Trowa-who-hangs-pictures and even student-Trowa. Instead of looking vaguely amused or simply bored Trowa wore a scowl that looked out of place on his features. His hair fell into both eyes, instead of to the side and his grip on the doorframe made his knuckles go pale.

Trowa made some kind of inhuman grunt and shut the door.

Duo stared at the door. What had Wufei said? Just knock again? So he knocked again. The door opened much faster this time, Trowa still glared but he held out his hand. Duo deposited the bag in his hand and just stood there awkwardly.

“What.” Trowa bit out.

“Uh. You’re welcome?” Duo tried.

Trowa blinked and made another grunt, “Thanks. . . Coffee? I’ve got espresso on.” The last bit was said grudgingly. He practically said ‘go the fuck away, Duo Maxwell.’

“No thanks, but if you could tell Wufei that I normally don’t do this kind of thing. . .”

“I wouldn’t have called him if I knew he was out of town.” Trowa hissed, his grip on the door tightened and his eyes narrowed. Then, as if he saw Duo for the first time — tired and hopped up on too much caffeine but with no energy to spare — shared a very small very wry grin. “You look like shit, too.” 

“Thanks, in no small part to Wufei, got it?”

“I’ll pass it along.” Trowa started to shut the door, almost cutting off the second _Thanks._

Duo stood in the hallway for a moment longer before trudging back down the stairs. He did look like shit. He still had the drive home too. With a groan Duo slapped his cheeks with both hands until they tingled and got in his car and drove home. He called out every street sign he saw to keep himself awake and barely had time to undress before falling into bed and falling asleep.

Three days later, and Duo had been woken up at 5 am from a phonecall that let him know that Ginger had broken her foot and had a concussion but everything was probably okay but he was listed as the emergency contact. The nurse on the line had been very apologetic about waking him up but she couldn’t actually do anything about his lack of sleep so he’d been a bit grouchy when he hung up.

By the time eight rolled around Duo felt antsy and the hospital hadn’t called again and he was sure that Ginger had probably fallen off her stupid tractor or something and why did she live on a farm. Solo would probably have flown to see her but — 

— he stared at his empty coffee machine and the lack of beans in his cabinet. The lack of extra beans in the freezer. The complete lack of emergency coffee anywhere. He didn’t have class until eleven but staying at home was doing nothing for his ability to wake up. He grabbed his bags and headed towards campus, he’d do some grading before class at Sole2Seoul.

“Oh, Mr. Maxwell?” The cashier said, after she took his credit card and swiped it. She then cleared his purchase and handed him an envelope. “Another customer left this for you and also started you a store tab. Have a great day.”

Inside the envelope was a quickly scrawled note: Thanks for the pick up. Wufei said he’d treat you to dinner sometime to make it up, you should force him into taking you somewhere pricy. Drinks for a week are on me - T.

He didn’t have too long to ponder the note — was there anything to ponder about? It would have been nice if Trowa apologized to slamming the door in his face, maybe. Duo grabbed his triple small latte when his phone started to ring. It was the hospital.

“Life never stops, does it?” He asked no one and answered. “Duo Maxwell.”


	12. Chapter 12

Ginger was okay, mostly. The break in her foot was complicated, but the concussion had been minor. She promised Duo over the phone to get help for the farm and not stumble around with a broken foot feeding horses and goats and to not fall off anymore tractors.

He felt guilty, because he wanted to hang up on her and just cut her out of his life. Duo didn’t want to deal with her and her problems. Just like how he hadn’t wanted to deal with Madder’s. It had always been his preferred strategy to run from things like this — that’s why he had gone to college, why he had gotten a job far away from home, why he hadn’t visited any of them until recently.

She’d cut through him again, in her parting words: “For all that you try to be independent, you’re really someone who’s only himself with other people. Duo.” And again reminded him that he had chosen his name to always reflect being with _Solo_.

Duo threw himself into work. Teaching always kept him busy, it was work that he had to take home — to grade, to write evaluations, to write letters of recommendation, to do his _own_ writing and research. It was a good way to fill his days and fill his mind and try to disconnect from the part of his life he didn’t want to deal with. And, honestly, students were needy. Even the ones that pretended they didn’t want his help to outline an essay or work through a scene in a play or how to fix the beginning of a story — many of them would send him an email later, or show up in his office with embarrassed bravado. This worked, for a few weeks.

He buried himself in papers and didn’t even notice when Wufei sits across from him at Sole2Seoul. It’s only after Wufei tapped the top of the paper to get his attention that he looked up. 

“Busy?” Wufei asked dryly.

“No, I’m just pretending to keep the pricks off my back.” Duo grinned. “You know, if anyone ever says that being a teacher is easy pay, please slug them a good one for me.”

“Getting arrested for assault isn’t on my list of priorities, especially for you, Maxwell.” Wufei’s tone was light but his frown intensified, “I owe you dinner.”

“Usually when you ask someone out you wait for them to say yes before getting bossy.”

“Don’t get an inflated sense of self, Maxwell, but it would do to clear the air between us.”

“I have to say, you’re the one who started off all snarly,” Duo shrugged, “But I won’t turn down a free meal. What day were you thinking?”

Wufei drummed his fingers on the table, he looked down at the papers Duo was grading. Duo tracked Wufei’s eyes, reading the words upside down.

“Thursday or Friday?”

“Thursday’s fine with me,” Duo tugged the papers back towards himself. “Where to? Please say somewhere I can wear jeans.”

“The Rubber Chicken.” Wufei quirked an eyebrow — it was a judging eyebrow quirk. The kind that said he was weighing Duo’s response carefully. Duo blinked, twice.

“Never heard of it. It’s not like. . . some weird slapstick diner right?” Though, Duo couldn’t imagine Wufei at a slapstick diner.

“No,” He snorted. “Look it up, if it isn’t to your tastes let me know.” And Wufei slid a business card across the table to Duo. Email, phone number and website printed cleanly under _Nataku / Meilin Long & Wufei Chang_.

“Six, okay?”

“Six is fine. Jeans are fine.” Wufei studied him. “You’ll be driving yourself to and from, so don’t plan to drink much.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Duo rolled his eyes. “Now, if you excuse me, I have student dreams to crush.”

With what might have been a smile, Wufei got up and left. Duo scowled at the papers, unable to concentrate again. He had been doing so well, focusing on things that he was good at and taking the good of each day being students who thanked him, or miraculously pulled their grades to passing with a little encouragement. And all of a sudden he thought about Trowa’s scowl, the slammed door, the following days and phone call about Ginger’s foot. And Solo would have gone to see her.

“I’m fucking haunted.” Duo shook his head and bent over the table and started reading the paper over from the beginning.

The Rubber Chicken doesn’t serve chicken. Duo pulled his car into the meager parking lot and eyed the building with only mild trepidation. It was a small restaurant — pricy, but on Wufei’s dime so — and only used local ingredients, but not chicken. The owner had raised chickens as a child and apparently as so attached he didn’t cook them. It was all very sanguine. Duo didn’t limit what kinds of food he put in his mouth, a habit he’d kept from a childhood of skipped meals and then fighting four adopted siblings at the dinner table.

Wufei was already at the door, waiting, but on the phone. Duo approached and caught a very short laugh from the other man, followed by what sounded like a mild admonishment. When Wufei caught sight of Duo, however, the smile vanished off his face and he bids the caller farewell, phone snapped shut.

“On time,” Wufei commented, as if he expected Duo to be late.

“Free food,” Duo grinned.

Wufei shrugged with one shoulder, but he held the door open for Duo. The inside of the Rubber Chicken was homey. It reminded Duo of kitchens from magazines. Bright, cheerful, expectant aunts and uncles around tables, family friends by the faux-fireplace in the corner. It didn’t remind Duo of his own home at all.

“Awful decorating.” Wufei grumbled, gave their name to the host and secured himself on the side of the two-person booth that let him see the whole restaurant. Duo sourly accepted the other side of the booth, fought to not shiver at the knowledge that his back was to the whole place.

“Yeah, it’s trying a bit hard. . . but the food must be good — for these prices?!” He almost shouted it. The menu was printed on tissue paper, or something, and each price mark was higher than the next. Wufei snorted.

“The best in the area, actually. Trowa suggested if I wanted to make it up to you, I take you here instead of Rush Street.”

“Thank god for Trowa Barton.” Duo replied. Rush Street was the most expensive restaurant in the area, but it had a choking fancy atmosphere that practically required tuxedos. Duo had never set foot inside and never planned to, though he knew Quatre had gone there before. “Isn’t this much just for apologizing about a late night phone call?” He skimmed the menu. It was all ‘classics’ with a twist. Grilled cheese on naan with paneer and spicy curry sauce. Heirloom tomato stew served with fennel and shallot salad and miniature cheese soufflés. Filet mignon with salt boiled fingerling potatoes and roasted scapes and parsnips. That kind of thing.

“Rush Street would have made a point.” 

“The point that you’re an asshole?”

“No, I already made that point.” Wufei tilted his head and a waiter seemed to materialize out of the fake cheer of The Rubber Chicken’s dining room. They ordered. Duo went with the extremely fancy not-chicken fingers and duck fat fried fries and Wufei ordered the shrimp and grits. Duo raised an eyebrow about that, not judging like Wufei’s had been, but curious. “A friend makes it, I just wonder if it compares.” Wufei explained.

“So, this. . . really just for that night?” Duo tried again. 

“No. It’s also for being an asshole at the gallery.” Wufei shrugged. “Years ago I was down on my luck and put up an ad on a social media site for a couch to crash on. Trowa let me stay at his place with no questions asked and without paying rent for three years. I didn’t think it was proper for a teacher to be so _interested_ in my work with him.”

“I didn’t know he was my student, first! And — it’s not like that, okay. You’ve got a good eye and Trowa’s obviously got a good body but like — like I said, I can get my jollies off cheaper and — “ Duo frowned. He heard himself fumble, defend himself. “ . . . look, I don’t even need to be saying that. But I would never do anything inappropriate with a student, so yeah, you were an asshole for thinking that. Even if it was for a friend.”

“So, two apologies and thinking we could start over. Even if you’re in insufferable blabbermouth.” 

“ _Me_?! Where do you get off on that!”

“I don’t see any advantage in being dishonest with you.”

That shut Duo right up. He glowered across the table at Wufei.

“Since we’re in the business of being honest tonight, let me be an _insufferable_ blabbermouth again. Quatre’s a friend of mine, we’re _good_ friends and I need to know if you and Meilin are just fucking with him.” He expected Wufei to at least be put off by the direct question. Instead the other man just gave his one-armed shrug. There’s something coolly balanced about Wufei, for all his biting judgment and assholery.

“You’ll have to question that woman if you want to know her part in it, we don’t share each other’s secrets, we _are_ partners. But I haven’t invited Quatre to anything under false pretenses.”

Duo narrowed his eyes. “Invited.”

“Usually when you ask someone out on a date you wait for their answer.” Wufei turned Duo’s words from before around and twisted them and tossed them at him. “But, shouldn’t you ask him that as well? Since he’s your good friend.”

“Oh, shut up, Wufei.”

“I’m getting the impression that you’re someone who meddles in other people’s affairs with his mouth first and brain later.” Wufei smirked. Dinner arrived. They ate in silence and Duo had to admit the food was good.

“Yeah, well, for all you brought me to dinner to apologize for being an asshole you’re still an asshole and you’ll probably continue to be one, huh?”

“Yes, but I won’t be an asshole who assumes you’re abusing your position as a teacher.”

“Glad we got that cleared up.” He said bitterly, because he was glad but so far talking to Wufei was exactly as pleasant as talking to Ginger.

“If you would like me to suffer under that delusion a while longer I can leave you with the cheque.”

Duo choked on a fancy french fry and pointed at him with his fork. “Don’t you fucking dare.”


	13. Chapter 13

The DMV was Satan’s lair. Duo arrived at eleven in the morning, after his class, and found that he was number 198. The counter called number 20. With a barely restrained groan he found a chair out of the way and settled down to reread the chapters he had assigned his students. An hour later and they were on number 45 and Duo shifted seats to one further down the row.

“Uh, hey,” and there, with number 230 clutched in one hand and a sheath of identification documents in another, was Trowa Barton. He nudged Duo’s shoulder with his papers, “Sorry, can I ask a favor? Can you hold these for a sec?”

Duo accepted the papers — a birth certificate, two passports from different countries, one being the U.S., a copy of a social security card and a bunch of other papers he didn’t recognize — “Hey, no problem.”

Trowa flashed him a thankful smile and walked over to grab one of the forms and clipboards from the kiosk. He returned to sit next to Duo and hurriedly filled it out. Duo studied the two passports. _PASSPORT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA_ and then _Union européenne République française passport._

“Passport renewal?” Duo hazarded.

“I need an ID, another one,” Trowa shrugged, finished the dorms and took his papers back. “I have a feeling I’m going to get up there and they’ll tell me I’m missing some form though.”

“Probably,” he nodded, “I think it’s part of their strategy. If they make you come back enough times you’ll stop coming and they’ll have less work.”

“Hm,” Trowa turned in his chair so he faced Duo fully, an unreadable expression on his face, “Or maybe they’re just conditioning us. The DMV is a cover.”

“A government experiment?” Duo felt himself grin, a little. He wasn’t exactly sure if Trowa was joking, yet, but he was fairly certain.

“How else will they keep the filthy masses obedient?” Trowa nodded and then revealed himself with a small quirk of the lips. “Make all of our necessities part of the waiting machine.”

“You know what that means, we need to break free.” Duo stood up. “Let’s take a lunch break, surely they can’t blow through a hundred numbers in the forty-five minutes we’ll be gone. C’mon, Barton, let’s stick it to the man.”

It seemed to fit together well. A joke, lunch, it’s something he’d do with an acquaintance, but as soon as Duo and Trowa exited the DMV — together — Duo hesitated. Trowa also stopped, one step behind.

“Not interested in overthrowing the government with an ex-student?” Trowa asked, voice soft.

“I don’t know, what are your skills?” Duo didn’t turn around. He really wished that Trowa hadn’t put it like that. There was no way, now, for them to go to lunch and for it to just be a casual by-chance event. 

“I can juggle.” Trowa stepped closer, then, but also to the side, so they stood shoulder to shoulder. Duo caught the profile of Trowa’s face, and there was no way to miss the lazy self-satisfied smirk. “I’m a man of many talents.”

“Subway.” Duo said, “We’re going to Subway to get sandwiches. The government will never expect that.” It has to be the least date-like food place nearby that isn’t a hot dog stand. The worst part was, Trowa laughed. It was a nice sound and then he stepped towards the Subway without another thought.

“We can also pass messages to the rebels in our napkins. I’m also an accomplished codebreaker, if I didn’t mention it yet.” The absolute deadpan in Trowa’s voice also made Duo laugh. “I didn’t bring a pen, though.”

“Luckily, I always have a pen on me.” Duo twirled said pen on his fingers and they ordered lunch. Duo’s standard was a meatball sub, chocolate chip cookie and a hideous mix of fountain drinks. When he had first been introduced to fountain drinks as a kid — really, all of Solo’s kids — he had been entranced. It had been magical. The habit of mixing them all together in a slurry of garbage drink stuck with him, even into adulthood.

Trowa ordered lettuce on bread. Lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, green peppers, provolone cheese and then oil and vinegar. Also, he ate his sandwich with a knife and fork, cutting it up into some kind of obscene bread salad. And drank water.

Duo stared, and then started laughing. “What is that?” He blurted out. Trowa chewed around the plastic fork in his mouth, slowly.

“You do know what’s in the meat here, don’t you?” He asked, so seriously that Duo almost spat out a meatball.

“Don’t tell me it’s dog, please don’t tell me it’s dog. I used to love Taco Bell.” Duo muttered.

“Soylent Green.” Trowa said, with zero change in his expression. Duo did choke on his meatball then, laughed again.

“Shit — _I promise, Tiger. I promise. I’ll tell the Exchange._ ”

And then, together, they said: “You tell everybody. Listen to me, Hatcher. You’ve gotta tell them! Soylent Green is people! We’ve gotta stop them somehow!”

Trowa’s solemn expression broke then, split into a wide grin and he admitted, “I don’t know any other quotes, but that one is good.”

“You’ve never seen it, huh.”

“Aren’t we both too young for that?”

“The classics aren’t bound by time,” Duo scoffed.

“I was never much of a movie watcher.”

They lingered at Subway, Duo convinced Trowa to try his drink which Trowa immediately decided was awful, the worst thing he’d ever had and he once drank the water out of the Seine. He added, sometimes the sewage overflows into the river. Duo pulled a face. It was a comfortable lunch, but Duo felt obligated to go wait in line again.

Trowa stretched, popped his back and winced. “I’ll rejoin the sheeple in another hour, probably.”

“You might miss your number.”

“That’s the price you pay for comfort!” But Trowa hesitated by the door to the DMV. “We should do lunch again, sometime. My treat.”

Duo’s eyes flickered to the line at the DMV, the sidewalk, to Trowa’s face. There wasn’t any unease in Trowa’s expression, just a light teasing, knowing, expression.

“Are you asking me out on a date at the DMV?” He joked.

“Hopefully we’re not doing lunch at the DMV.” Trowa replied easily.

“Let’s do lunch, then.” Duo hesitantly agreed. The teasing look on Trowa’s face bloomed into a full smile. Duo licked his lips, felt himself smile easily back and he felt like laughing again. It was a nice thing to look forward to, he thought, idly.

“And not Subway again, I’m not watching you drink that sludge.” Trowa teased, “If you prefer, we can meet on neutral ground. Sole2Seoul?”

Duo shook his head, he really didn’t want to go to lunch with Trowa on a date and know those photos Wufei took were probably still hanging on the wall. “Somewhere new. Wait — here’s my number.” Duo scrawled it on a scrap of an old leaflet in his pocket and handed it over. “Texting is better than calling, though. Surprise me.”

“You’re playing with fire, saying that.”

“When fighting against the oppressive government, one must always be ready for danger.” Duo saluted, mockingly. Trowa mirrored the gesture, stretched again and then walked off down the sidewalk of the stripmall. 

Duo waited at the DMV for another two hours, and it was only after he had filed his change of address that he saw Trowa slip back inside as the counter called number 225.


	14. Chapter 14

Trowa called, he didn’t text. The message is on Duo’s phone, after class, but he doesn’t listen to it until lunch.

“Hey, it’s me.” Pause. “Your co-conspirator in anti-government rebellion.” The creak of something in the background. “Trowa. You said to text, but I don’t have a cell phone.” Another pause. Duo wondered if it was because he couldn’t see Trowa’s face or if the other was actually uneasy with phones. “Next Thursday all right? Maybe around seven?” Then he hung up, no goodbye.

Duo stared at the phone a little. Thursday wasn’t bad, but that weekend was the 24 hour plays and he, selfishly, didn’t really want to do anything. Besides, hadn’t they agreed to lunch? Part of him did wonder if Trowa was pushing, trying for more or if it had just slipped his mind.

Trowa’s phone rang six times before going to _Barton, leave a message_ in decidedly _not_ Trowa’s voice.

“Trowa — hey, it’s Duo. Do you have lunch at seven, often? Let’s try like noon or one on Thursday. Call me back.”

They played phone tag for four days. Duo got the feeling that Trowa just didn’t like talking to people on the phone, since he only seemed to call when normal people would be busy, or guessing at when Duo would be busy. Or Trowa really needed to get a cellphone so they could text instead of call. Finally they settled on the college cafe, of all places.

“You’re surgically attached to those papers,” Trowa said, as way of greeting. Duo’s ever constant stack of plays, essays and response papers shared the table with them.

“I _am_ a teacher.”

“Sometimes I conveniently forget the time I spent in your class, by request, even,” Trowa smirked. “I’ll grab us food, what do you want?”

“Since you were so against meat at Subway, grilled cheese. They make a good pear and brie one, weirdly enough. And a Coke.”

“If Subway is Soylent Green I shudder to think of what the school food is. Maybe cockroaches, or babies.”

Duo raised his eyebrows.

“ _Snowpiercer_ ,” Trowa explained and went to get their lunch. He returned with two grilled cheese, a coke and apple juice. “Don’t tell me you didn’t see it?”

“I haven’t even heard of it.” Duo admitted.

“Limited release, so I guess that isn’t a surprise.” Trowa nodded. “I liked _The Host_ better, though.”

Lunch was benign. Duo hadn’t seen either _Snowpiercer_ or _The Host_ and after hearing that one was a comedy-horror flick he wasn’t sure he particularly wanted to. Trowa spent a lot of time watching movies — many of which he admitted were bad.

“I’ve seen four _Leprechaun_ movies.” He confessed, somewhat mournfully.

“Someone should cut off your Netflix, maybe,” Duo suggested. “Or take up seeing plays.”

“I think you have some bias there.”

“A little, but the school’s second 24-hour play production of the semester is this weekend, you could come.”

Trowa, who had eaten around his crusts first, folded up one side of crust and then shoved it in his mouth. He chewed, swallowed. “When is it?”

“I’ll be there all day, but the show isn’t until the evening. The plays are usually pretty fun, not necessarily well-written or produced, given the time constraints that’s impossible, but I was hoping you’d want to show and bring me coffee.” 

“Well, if you’re asking me to go, I won’t say no.”

“You’ll want to come by around nine or so, then you can see the students freak out.” Duo grinned. “My kids are all writers, so they usually take a midday nap and let everyone else run around in a panic.”

“It’s a date, then.” Trowa confirmed.

The rest of the lunch was spent hedging around various topics. Duo could have asked how Trowa’s work was going, but he suspected it would only provide Trowa with another opening about something he didn’t particularly want to hear about on campus. For his part, Trowa seemed somewhat self-contained, easily going along with Duo’s conversation topics. They argued briefly about feral cats and people who wore socks with their sandals and then Trowa had to go to work. Work that he didn’t specify what it was but the toothy smirk and finger-wave as he left told Duo it was probably with Wufei.

While lunch had been benign, the rest of Duo’s day was decidedly not — as if to make up for it. Madder called him, insistent and while Duo let him play on speakerphone while he graded there was no way that he could just continue like that. He had to make plans to either tell Madder to grow the fuck up or to visit.

He has, pretty sure, that Solo would visit Madder. Or invite Madder to visit him. He did have a futon, so it wasn’t impossible but there was the possibility that Madder would simply _not leave_ at the end of the visit. 

One student’s coach dropped by to talk about grades — which Duo could do nothing about. He couldn’t adjust grades for academic eligibility nor could he particularly discuss things with the coach. Two students stood him up for appointments and he spilled coffee over a pile of essays.

“I should buy a lottery ticket,” Duo groaned and spread out the essay pages to dry on the desk. The damage wasn’t too bad, but it was always a bit awkward to return papers he’d treated poorly to students. It reminded him that he should really give the electronic turn-in a go, but he hated correcting things on the computer. Pen and paper worked far better for him.

Finally the evening crawled by and with no further disasters he headed home. He found, stuffed in his mailbox of his apartment, _Snowpiercer_ and _The Host_ — checked out from the library, undoubtedly in Trowa’s name.


	15. Chapter 15

He was never doing 24-hour plays again, though he had the suspicion that if asked, and told no other staff member wanted to oversee it, he’d be stuck with it again. There was something vibrant about 24-hour plays, because the students didn’t have the luxury to worry. As a writing exercise he considered it worth the lack of sleep, as the staff overseeing it, not so much. 

It was almost nine at night and Duo felt like he’d run a marathon and then been hit by a truck. There was still several hours to go, including the show itself. The school’s little theater was in bad need of a rehaul, as well. The seats were worn with age, and well, abuse. The little theater was only used for small casual productions like the 24-hour plays, the more _rowdy_ plays that weren’t expected to have a larger audience and, oddly enough, parties. Duo wouldn’t have believed it had he not been invited to one earlier in the year. He had only gone long enough to see exactly how awkward it was and stayed to chat for the polite amount of time — and hope someone cleaned between the theater’s seats — before making his exit.

Duo was glad when his phone told him it was nine. It distracted him from staring at the rows of seats in the little theater and trying to remember which ones had been the unfortunate victim of party food and drink being spilled. Trowa was supposed to meet him in front of the theater doors, though that was also where the writers had decided to sprawl out with the actors and go over the scripts again. He stepped over two prone bodies and three more practically vibrating ones — “Looking good!”, flashed a smile — and looked around for Trowa.

Trowa stood a head above, pretty much literally. He wasn’t easy to miss, even if Duo let his gaze slide past him and then return. Trowa quirked a smile at that, and then cocked his head, mouthing _here or there?_ Duo waved and walked over, narrowly dodging a group of students carrying what was probably meant to be a set piece, but it didn’t look anything like any of the setting information he’d read.

“Chaotic, I like it.” Trowa said.

“You should have been here a few hours before,” Duo laughed. “One of the writers decided they wanted to change the ending. I thought the actors were going to riot and lock him in the walk-in.”

“You look like hell.”

“Next time, you can be their advisor for this.” Duo bit back a yawn. “I could go for a coffee.”

“Your wish is my command.” Trowa hefted a silver thermos and then also a plastic bag. Duo could clearly see the scone inside, slathered with Nutella. “I can’t believe this is your favorite snack, though.”

“Don’t knock it until you try it. But, I get the feeling that the traditional Maxwell power breakfast is lost on mere mortals like yourself.” He gleefully tore into the scone and washed down the first bite with the coffee. “Fixed just the way I like it! Either your psychic or a stalker and if it’s the second, I might have to put in a restraining order.”

“I’m sure some kind of restraining order wouldn’t be amiss,” Trowa teased back but shrugged, “It’s not that mysterious. I asked Quatre.”

“That’s cheating.”

“And if I hadn’t asked you’d be drinking coffee from the gas station.” Trowa smirked. “And eating shredded wheat.”

“That’s gross. Who eats shredded wheat?” Duo pulled a face, quickly eating the rest of the scone. The coffee he savored, warmed and cheered at the same time.

“I hear fiber helps keep you awake.”

“You’re shi— joking!”

“Definitely shitting you.” Trowa nodded. “So, what are we in store for tonight?”

“Two plays, written and put together in under 24-hours, basically. The first one should be interesting, takes place in the toy section of a mall after hours. I think, anyway. Sometimes there’s a lot of last minute changes, and there was an elevator written into this one, so I’m going to guess they were either really clever or changed that.” He laughed. It wasn’t a bad idea, but the student who had written it was a big idea thinker and didn’t have a good grasp on the practicalities of both theater and time constraints. Duo had suggested the kid do 24-hour plays, to try and force her to reign it in. “The second takes place in a car. Hitchhiker and a trucker have a conversation on death. Not a downer though, probably.”

“Looking forward to it.” Trowa said vaguely. Duo wasn’t sure if that was sarcasm or simple politeness.

“Thanks for coming.”

“I wasn’t doing anything, and it’s already been worth it.”

It was good Trowa had said that because the plays were not very good. They were still thrilling and Duo’s sleep-deprived brain enjoyed them, but he spent most of the night watching Trowa’s face during the performances. He had an actor’s face, Duo thought, there was an eerie amount of control to Trowa’s expressions. Once or twice he caught Duo staring and pulled that same quirked smile that was becoming familiar, one part odd amusement and one part genuine mirth.

He did applaud, at the end, at least.

“Well, that was something,” Trowa said, but then added, “Glad I came.”

“Glad you did too, I hope you want to convert to the church of theater now. We could always use more worshippers.” Duo quipped, only a little uneasy. It made Trowa laugh, though.

“And what are the benefits to converting? Eternal salvation?”

“I was just going to say a ride home.” His tone was a shade too serious, evidenced by the way Trowa studied him.

“With conversion benefits like that, who could say no?” They spend another moment studying each other before Duo grinned and led the way to his car.

“You walked?”

“It’s not that far and the weather’s good.”

“I’ll admit, this is my selfishness,” Duo unlocked the car door and made an exaggerated gesture for Trowa to sit in the passenger side front seat. “You can help keep me awake for another thirty minutes or so.”

“Maybe you should have napped earlier.”

“And show the students my weakness? _Never_. They might think I’m a real person then.”

“Student delusions aren’t useful for much.” Trowa said, he leaned on the word _useful_ and Duo was glad that the drive to Trowa’s apartment was short. He didn’t turn off the car, just put it in park.

“Thanks for coming, again.”

The light of the apartment building and the street lamp cast Trowa’s face into an odd expression. Duo grinned, lopsidedly, flicked the unlock button the door. Trowa gave a very short laugh.

“Yeah, any time.”

Their eyes met again. Duo leaned across the median in the car, a little, and Trowa leaned to meet him halfway. Maybe it was the lighting, or that Duo was tired, but there was a satisfied mischief in Trowa’s eyes that seemed so at odds with the evening.

“Have a good night, Trowa.” Duo said quickly and sat up enough so he could brush Trowa’s bangs to the side and kiss his forehead. With an amused exhale Trowa sat back, undid his seat belt and slipped out of the car.

“Good night, Duo. Let’s do this again sometime.”

Duo sat in his car for a full five minutes after Trowa went inside. Well that went belly-up rather fast. He sighed, cast the passenger seat a glare, as if it had betrayed him, and drove home.


	16. Chapter 16

The end of the semester came faster than before. Duo drowned in his work and before he knew it the weather had started to go from chill to way too hot and he was bidding his students goodbye. It was always half-relief half-longing, even for the more troublesome students. Over the year he’d really gotten to know some of them and even for those who didn’t graduate it was unlikely he’d see them again. Duo’s old advisor used to call it Empty Nest Syndrome for Teachers, a delicate balance between caring and not caring too much.

He didn’t need to worry about too empty of a nest however, Quatre came to visit again — only with intent to buy a small house or condo. Sometimes being friends with Quatre was like looking into a portal of a world that Duo just didn’t understand. He had already resigned himself to renting until he died unless he moved out into the middle of nowhere, but Quatre could just buy a house as easy as most people would buy a new pair of underwear.

“What do you think of this neighborhood?” Quatre pointed to a block of houses on the map. Duo looked down at it, but he really didn’t have any idea.

“Quat, I don’t even live in town properly.”

“Still, your opinion means a lot to me. I was hoping that you would go with me to look,” Quatre grinned, “I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

“Go for the house with a pool,” Duo offered immediately. Quatre laughed and shook his head.

“See! I need you to remember things like that. It won’t be in use all year round, of course, but I could always rent it out or sublet when I’m away on business. . .”

“What made you want to get a house here, anyway?”

“The city can be exhausting and there’s people here I’d like to see more often.” Most people would have the decency to blush but Quatre just gave Duo a thin sly smile that he knew all too well.

“Aha, multiple people is it?”

“Mmmhmm.”

“So, are you going to tell me what the deal is? ‘Fei was really not helpful, plus I don’t think he likes me.” Duo crossed his arms, indicating that he wasn’t going to help with the house search until Quatre fessed up. Quatre chewed his lower lip and studied the map again. He was clearly thinking of dodging the question.

“Well, it’s not that unusual. . .”

“Whenever you start with that I’m suspicious. Last time you said that I found out your house had not one but two tennis courts.” Quatre flushed at Duo’s recollection. He hadn’t been tried to hide his wealth, but Duo had had no real idea exactly _how_ rich Quatre was for a while. The revelation had been mindblowing, to say the least.

“Meilin and Wufei and I . . . we’re together. Sort of.” Quatre said. “Not — like a threesome, before you say something inappropriate!”

“Inappropriate? _Me?_ ”

“I certainly remember you making a terrible parent-teacher conference joke once.” Quatre grinned. Duo groaned and put his face in his hands.

“I fully regret ever saying that, can’t we let it die?”

“Never. Now that you’re a teacher I plan to bring it up whenever possible.” 

“So, about your threesome. . .”

Quatre’s fingers tore at the edge of the map a little. “It’s not really. I’m just dating both of them.” He got out.

“I thought they were partners?”

“They are, that’s why it works.”

Duo covered his surprise — and the spike of protective feelings for his friend — by slapping Quatre’s back, hard.

“From a guy who didn’t date anyone for like four years to two at a time? Damn, Quatre!” That made Quatre relax. He smiled and stopped worrying at the map.

“It’s not entirely uncommon, but it isn’t typical either. You know just — relationships can be more complicated than just simple two person romance. . .”

“Tell me about it,” Duo sighed. That was clearly the wrong move to make as Quatre leaned closer, suddenly. His smile had turned into something positively evil.

“Oh?”

“No.”

“Come on, Duo, aren’t we friends?”

“Yeah, but you’re still up on the parent-teacher conferences.” Duo pointed out.

“Oh my, you’re not _actually_ seeing a parent of a student, are you?” Quatre gaped. “I wouldn’t have — “

“No! No! Oh, don’t even think about that!”

Quatre sat back and studied Duo’s face. There was a boundary of teasing between them, something they had felt out over the years. Duo used to have the tendency to tease too much and Quatre had a sixth sense for turning the most innocent of conversations into death traps. In a way, it had been the foundation of their friendship, barbed communications and hasty reassurances in the awkward way only young people could manage.

“Something complicated, though?”

“Not like dating two people complicated.”

“Hey, everyone’s in on the loop. It’s not like cheating or anything.”

“We might not even be dating.” Duo pointed out.

“If you weren’t really dating then you’d be joking about it. Like the time with the hot waitress. And the other time with the guy who kept holding the door open for you at the grocery store.”

“If I tell you, you have to promise no double dates.” 

Quatre held up his hand and then solemnly placed it over his heart. “I promise, no double dates.”

“You know, the model for some of your Wufei’s photography? Trowa?”

“Your ex-student, you mean?” Quatre grinned. “Wufei mentioned that you guys might have something, but I couldn’t tell if he was just judging you or not.”

“Why would he judge me! I’m not the porn photographer.” Duo huffed. 

“Well, he has a lot of experience with different kinds of people. He’s quick to judge but not as inflexible as he seems.”

“Please don’t tell me about your flexible adventures, I don’t want to know.”

“So, what’s the problem with Trowa? He seemed nice.” 

Duo sighed. There wasn’t exactly a single problem with Trowa. The first and most obvious one had been that Trowa was his student, but that wasn’t true anymore. And as much as Trowa put him off-balance, Trowa also seemed to fall into a comfortable _truly_ companionable existence with Duo too.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “We’ve been out a few times, but he’s kind of . . .”

“Mysterious?” Quatre asked.

“Unexpected?” Duo tried. Quatre nodded thoughtfully.

“You’re not exactly as expected either, Duo.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“A lot of people would expect you to be more wild or carelessness. I used to think you would be a real party animal.” Quatre laughed. “But you’re really careful about responsibilities and are a nice guy after all.”

“When you say nice guy it makes me feel like a tool, Quat.”

“But, maybe he also isn’t sure what to make of you.”

“I don’t even know if we both want the same thing, even if spending time with him isn’t bad.”

Quatre rolled his eyes. “See. A lot of people would say something like, well he’s totally hot and I’m into that. But instead you’re like, spending time with him is _nice_. What were you expecting?”

“Well, you remember what it was like with Heero.” Duo frowned on reflex. He usually didn’t bring Heero up first, but it was somewhat inevitable. Quatre nodded again.

“When I was a teenager I thought James Dean would throw rocks at my window and then we’d run off into the night and get married in Vegas.”

“What?!” Duo stared and couldn’t help but laugh a little at the sudden confession. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Now I’m more interested in who wants to go see an art gallery with me on the weekend or come over for a glass of wine. If James Dean threw rocks at my window I’d yell at him for property damage.”

“Are you saying I’ve become boring in my old age? Thanks, Quatre. I’m not even 30.” But Duo could see Quatre’s point. Who he liked and how he liked them, a _decade_ ago, wasn’t really applicable to now. Especially since his life was slowly becoming divided up by before Solo’s death and after Solo’s death. That thought made his stomach drop, unexpected grief sneaking up on him again. “Ah. . . I guess, it is different.”

Quatre grabbed his hand and squeezed. “As old as we are, Duo, we’re still getting older.”

“I’m an adult and need an adult sometimes.” Duo squeezed back, glad that Quatre had come into town again. Even if they were going to be looking at houses all afternoon. “So, onto you buying a small island.”

“Duo!” Quatre’s mock horrified exclamation dissolved into laughter. “Ok, maybe you’re right though and I should look at something more modest. . .”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little more about Quatre, Wufei and Meilin in this chapter -- and with that we pass the 20k mark! How exciting. Heero will make his in the flesh appearance soon as well, nothing in the past stays in the past in _Pinter Pause_.


End file.
